Re: As an aside, a possibly interesting read....

I work for the US ISBN Agency and used to chair the BISG Identification
Committee (I still serve on it, but had to step down as chair once I
started with Bowker, because I didnıt want the appearance of conflict of
interest), and I can attest that the identification problem is related to
several factors:

1. Mis-application of ISBNs - publishers not assigning separate ISBNs to
different formats of ebooks, as per the standard; or publishers not
assigning ANY ISBNs to their digital editions - inconsistent use of any
standard leads to confusion in the marketplace (and new standards being
developed to combat problems that proper application of the old standard
could have solved - the xkcd problem)
2. Lack of clarity as to what constitutes a use case for assigning a new
ISBN on a different DRM system - publishers just donıt believe that
different DRM should warrant such a thing; the international ISBN
organization disagrees. In truth, because digital books are so siloed on
their platform, itıs a use case that practically hasnıt come up yet; until
we can read Kobo books on our Kindles, itıs a purely theoretical issue.
3. Lack of uptake on ISTC, which the paper points out. ISTC has not gained
traction (in the US at least) for three reasons: Lack of publisher control
(anyone can assign an ISTC to a work - a library, an aggregator, a
literary agent - it does not have to come from the publisher, which makes
publishers uneasy); inability to successfully define across the supply
chain what constitutes a ³work² (who decides? Do translations count? What
is a ³work² to a publisher is very different from what a ³work² is to a
library, to a retailer, to the end user, etc); the likelihood that
different editions from different publishers would be linked and consumers
would have more choice (publishers benefit from your not knowing that
thereıs a competing edition out there somewhere).

I donıt see this issue getting any simpler in the near term, unfortunately.


On 9/23/14, 7:19 AM, "Ivan Herman" <ivan@w3.org> wrote:

>This is just an FYI: may be an interesting to read. Nothing
>Earth-shattering and, no surprise, the biggest problems for the digital
>preservation is the unique identification of books and DRM. But it is a
>good reference to have... (the first issue is clearly related to
>metadata, too).
>
>Title: Preserving eBooks
>
>Authors: Amy Kirchhoff (Portico) and Sheila Morrissey (Ithaka)
>
>DPC Technology Watch Report 14-01 June 2014
>
>Full Text:
>
>http://dx.doi.org/10.7207/twr14-01
>36 pages; PDF.
>
>Source: Digital Preservation Coalition
>
>Abstract:
>
>This report discusses current developments and issues with which
>public, national, and higher education libraries, publishers,
>aggregators, and preservation institutions must contend to ensure
>long-term access to eBook content. These issues include legal
>questions about the use, reuse, sharing and preservation of eBook
>objects; format issues, including the sometimes tight coupling of
>eBook content with particular hardware platforms; the embedding of
>digital rights management artefacts in eBook files to restrict access
>to them; and the diverse business ecosystem of eBook publication, with
>its associated complexities of communities of use and, ultimately,
>expectations for preservation.
>
>
>----
>Ivan Herman, W3C 
>Digital Publishing Activity Lead
>Home: http://www.w3.org/People/Ivan/
>mobile: +31-641044153
>GPG: 0x343F1A3D
>WebID: http://www.ivan-herman.net/foaf#me
>
>
>
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 23 September 2014 15:41:13 UTC